Thanks for the feedback guys, I think you are both trying to say the same thing about preferring the original power panel design, but I definitely prefer the way [USER=893]@BlackRogue[/USER] worded it!
I will do my best to offer both panel options, opinion is definitely split.
You are right [USER=277]@Ralphort[/USER] the LZ7 is no M1, that case is truly amazing, but aimed at a completely different audience. I appreciate this is expensive for what it is, I'm doing all I can to try and keep the price as low as possible, but at the same time I can't carry on selling them at cost price!
Raw Acrylic sheet is cheap in the grand scheme of things yes, but the Acrylic sheet itself is actually more expensive than sheet metal.
The majority cost of the panels come from the manufacturing process of turning these raw materials into finished products, not the raw material cost itself. In other words time is money and laser cutting takes lots of time, the more detail (vents for example) in your design the more time it takes.
Laser cutting also does not scale up very well for volume production, because the laser still takes the same amount of time per panel whether you are making 1 or 1000. All you can do to reduce cost is try and bring the raw material cost down through efficient nesting, but as I said before the raw material cost is only a fraction of the overall case cost anyway, something like 10 - 15%.
The main material cost of the LZ7 is the 3D printed parts which accounted for 45% of the total First Edition case cost including all the laser cut panels, feet, IO PCB, screws, packaging, manuals, website fees, payment fees, etc which made up the remaining 55% of the cost.
There are only 2 ways I can bring the material cost of the case down, either reduce the size of the 3D printed parts, or simplify the venting details to reduce laser cutting time.
